With the 2020 election inching toward the finish, the 2024 speculation has started to roll from political media. While 2024 is a long way away, we can realistically eliminate one of the more popular names being floated — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
The Hogan speculation goes like this: Donald Trump is going to get blown out by Joe Biden. This will sour the GOP on Trump and “Trumpism” and lead to a full swing over to the best positioned anti-Trump Republican, which would be Hogan.
The logic is simple, and it appears Hogan is indeed preparing for a 2024 run, but there are a couple flaws in this logic.
Of course, the obvious problem is that the 2020 election is still over three months away, and a Trump victory would bury Hogan’s campaign before it even begins. Yet even if Trump loses, and even if it is by a large margin, would that force the Republican Party to reject tenets of its platform that were in place long before Trump was even around?
Hogan’s biggest obstacle is that he is not pro-life. “When you try to pigeonhole, yes or no, pro-life or pro-choice, it’s not a black or white issue,” is not a position that’s going to play in a GOP presidential primary. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans consider themselves pro-life, and social conservatives will likely remain the drivers of the party.
To guess what kind of Republican the GOP could rally around if the party sours on Trump, we need only look back to the 2016 race. It was not John Kasich or Jeb Bush, Hogan’s closest comparisons, behind whom anti-Trump Republicans were lining up. It was Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, two dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who were products of the tea party movement.
The idea that the GOP base would turn on conservatism writ large if they turned on Trump is a good example of media navel-gazing. The infatuation with groups like the Lincoln Project has convinced them that all Republicans must end up becoming liberals if they too turn on Trump.
Surely you can’t be wrong thinking Rick Wilson and Jon Weaver have their finger on the pulse of the Republican Party.
Larry Hogan is a boon to Republicans as the governor of Maryland. The GOP can and should find more people like Hogan to run in blue states, cities, and districts. There is a place for Larry Hogan in the future of the Republican Party, but it’s not at the top of a presidential ticket.
